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vatblack
Posts: 221 Member
As an OAer, how do you marry the "dieting" aspects of a food plan and action plan with not obsessing about food and exercise?
I have been going to the rooms for 2 years and each and every time I dare go on a food plan, I last 2 weeks at most and start binging like crazy. I am currently in a step group and is working on step 6. I also am starting a meditation program that will help me get in touch with my feelings. I think I've got that part of OA down mentally but I'm still afraid of following the exercise and calorie suggestions on here.
Basically, I'm afraid of drowning in the numbers - as numbers can be a trigger for me. Any insight of how I can marry the two would be appreciate.
And speak your mind freely. I'll take what I can use and leave the rest here.
I have been going to the rooms for 2 years and each and every time I dare go on a food plan, I last 2 weeks at most and start binging like crazy. I am currently in a step group and is working on step 6. I also am starting a meditation program that will help me get in touch with my feelings. I think I've got that part of OA down mentally but I'm still afraid of following the exercise and calorie suggestions on here.
Basically, I'm afraid of drowning in the numbers - as numbers can be a trigger for me. Any insight of how I can marry the two would be appreciate.
And speak your mind freely. I'll take what I can use and leave the rest here.
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Replies
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Hi I'm new to the group also.
I've been in OA for many years now, and its only the last two years I've had the confidence to try and reduce my calories to lose the the remainder of my weight without it feeling like a diet. I am similar that as soon as I 'diet' I binge.
I decided I had to eat the smallest deficit possible. So for me that was eating at maintenance. I know this sounds confusing, but for me the maintenance allowance was still making me lose a small amount of weight. I decided right from the start that as long as I kept my abstinence I didn't care how long it took the weight to come off.
I've now been trying to lose the last 7lbs and decided to leave it there. I'm walking away from weight loss and happy to see what happens in my higher powers way and time.
Take what you like, and feel free to leave the rest. Hope some of this helped.0 -
That was very helpful thank you.0
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You ask a very good question. In October, I will celebrate my 10th OA birthday. In those 10 years, my definition of abstinence has changed dramatically many times. For example, for several years, I could not send in my food every day to a sponsor (or track it in a website like this one) because it was a trigger for me. My food plan at that time was simple--eat healthy choices. At that point, I did not even worry about portions because if I was eating healthy foods, it felt right. Other times I really needed to learn about portion control and did track portions of food. For me today, I live almost 100 miles from the nearest face to face meeting and have had a million problems trying to find a sponsor that fits me and the way I work my OA program. So I use this website for accountability and reality checks and I try to stay active by posting in several OA spots several times a week. I read OA literature and use other tools of the program. I am very active in working on my spiritual side as this is a key for me.
Bottom line is that this website is just another tool. If it triggers me, I would log off for a while. If it helps me stay accountable, then I use it faithfully. Right now this tool works for me because it complements my defintion of abstinence.
Glad to see your post. It really helps when we are more active and support one another. Welcome!0 -
Raggyanndoll - thank you for the reply. It would be nice if this board could be more active.
I like that you state this is a tool. This is the mantra I've been using the last 5 days since I've logged on. I do not want to use this as a prescriptive tool, merely as a guidance tool to help me keep track of my food and exercise. If I approach it like that, I can see how I can avoid it becoming a trigger. He-he, it does make me think twice about the food choices I make, so in that way, it is more effective than my sponsors have been. Sponsors are human and I can resent them for telling me this or that. I cannot resent a dumb computer. All I think is: hey, it tells me what it has been programmed to tell me and I don't need to follow what it says a 100%. All it does is measure for me. (And I can copy and paste this to mys sponsor, which makes it easier to report my food! Not that I do report my food or use my sponsor at all right now! I have been rebelling a bit lately.)
In the first 4 days, I ate twice over my calories and twice under... never ON. I am yet to meet my exercise criteria that I set, so I'm going to adjust that right now so that I can "win" rather than "lose".
What makes me feel good and makes me realize that I have made great strides in the program is that I am not trying to make any of the number ON. I am trying not to stray from the numbers too far, and that's all.0 -
In the first 4 days, I ate twice over my calories and twice under... never ON. I am yet to meet my exercise criteria that I set, so I'm going to adjust that right now so that I can "win" rather than "lose".
What makes me feel good and makes me realize that I have made great strides in the program is that I am not trying to make any of the number ON. I am trying not to stray from the numbers too far, and that's all.
My name is Kris and you can feel free to add me as a friend, if you want. I love my supportive friends here.
Sounds like you are both being gentle with yourself and have some work to do. I'm right there with ya on both counts! Right now I am trying to lose more weight without being obsessed about it--not an easy task for someone like me. MFP works for me right now. There have been times that it would not have worked for me because it would have fed the obsession with "dieting".
Glad to see you here!0 -
This is so true for me also. At the moment I've stepped away from the calorie counting. I've been on here for two years and happily lost 14lb (lost 14lb previously with just abstaining from sugar), gained knowledge of portion-sizes, but been getting in a stew over losing the last 7-8lb. I asked for guidance from my HP to allow me to give up the counting and to live free from it all. I'm 5 days into this now, and finding it very freeing indeed!!
Bottom line is that this website is just another tool. If it triggers me, I would log off for a while. If it helps me stay accountable, then I use it faithfully. .
When I need the calorie counting tool again, I won't hesitate to pick it up.
I'm accepting today, this is the weight I'm meant to be, and the rest will come off in Gods time.
Vatblack I also wish this board was more active. I found it by mistake, and had no idea it was here!!!!! At least we're here.
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Yes, at least we are here! I just had to laugh at myself in my step group yesterday. One of the last questions in step 6 was: "What is my attitude regarding change?" This, if you recall, is in the context of letting go of one's character defects. One big character defect of mine is an "all or nothing" attitude. So, I related to my fellow OAers there how my journey on here has been in the last 5 days (yesterday was my fifth day!)
Day 1: Whoo-hoo what a cool tool - and I can eat my exercise calories - no more starving (It took me a long time to learn that I need to eat to lose weight!)
Day 2: Oh no, I did not eat my exercise calories. But I'm not hungry. Should I eat it. If I don't eat it will I still lose the weight. If I eat it (my gosh what a lot of calories) will I lose weight?
Day 3: I ate over my calories and had the instinctive urge not to log all the calories I ate. Like anyone is seeing it and will say anything about it! And I started worrying that I'm not abstinent and that I'm not working the program and ....
Day 4: Ate under again - see 2, I think that is the day I asked for help on here because it started to feel wrong (or it may have been on day 3?). Started reading a lot of articles why eating exercise calories work and started worrying about the large number of calories this tool gives me to eat when I exercise.
Day 5: Ate under the calories but decided to give it a rest! The worrying about the calories. This is when I wrote the reply below where I reminded myself that it is a measuring tool that helps me keep track of what I have done so that I don't have to play the worry game in my mind.
I have decided to try not to eat too far over the calories but also not to worry if I do and not to worry if I eat under. If I'm hungry, I will fuel my body. If I'm not hungry, I'm not going to give my body food it isn't asking for. I am not on here to trick my body, to manipulate it or to become something else.
I am here to keep track of my food so that I can stop obsessing about it. I am fully aware that I at once need the measuring tool to help me stop obsessing but that the tool itself can become an obsession. So, for today, I'm going to ask my HP to remove my obsession with the numbers. I'm asking for the grace to look at them and to see: "This is your progress". "This is how you are doing right now." Instead of seeing: "You need to eat this much to lose weight."
I commit to coming on here every day and post how the numbers are affecting me. If I see that I'm becoming obsessed I might have to go.0 -
I've been in OA for quite sometime and had several years of abstinence and relapsed. I am SLOWLY coming out of the relapse and it has been a challenge. During the beginning of my recovery, I could not have handled a program like this, I couldn't even tell my sponsor what I ate until afterwards, because I didn't want to commit and would feel anxious if I didn't stick to the plan I committed to. However, for today,, I like this website as a tool for tracking and accountability. No matter where I am in my recovery, I will always need to be accountable to what I am eating and how much I am eating. I want to make a complete lifestyle change and not live in the daily obsession with food, but at the same time I recognize that I am only given a daily reprieve based on my fit spiritual condition. I have a checklist of items for my recovery and using my fitness pal is one of the ways that I stay accountable to what I'm eating and participate in my recovery. I am FAR FROM PERFECT and thankfully today, I don't have an expectation of myself to be perfect. I just do the best that I can and leave the results up to God. Good luck with the program and feel free to reach out.0
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Its so nice to have others who understand, and I'm grateful for you both posting so honestly.
I decided it was time for a break from counting my calories when it had got to 8 pm and I realised I still have 380 calories to eat. I had sat in the bath thinking what can I use those calories on. I wasn't feeling hungry so had no appetite, but my disease was saying you MUST eat these calories because they are there. I went downstairs and told my husband I was going to have a snack. He questioned this because at dinner time I'd said how full I felt after eating. When I said I've still got 380 cals to eat he said I didn't HAVE to eat them!
This really annoyed me, how dare he question what I can, cant do blah, blah etc etc and because of this I went and binged. Firstly, ate the 380 cals in front of him, the rest in secret.
This tool has helped me so much to identify correct portion sizes, and that I need to eat to lose weight. I couldn't have lost weight without it. But for the moment I need to just listen to my hp and my body because I too can have the feelings that vatblack was describing.
ihardy I also couldn't have handled this program when first in recovery, I also couldn't give my food in to a sponsor daily because the tiniest deviation from that would give me the mindset you've blown it girl now you're not abstinent, you're not working this programme good enough blah blah blah. So to start with my food plan was to give up sugar, I kept it simple. 10 years later I was able to then come on here.0 -
Thanks for your honesty on here! Firstly, I could also not handle this tool before now. I think I needed to sort out much more before now. In my first two years with OA I have not lost any weight! Well, I did lose 15lbs and then gained it all back.
With this tool I feel that the obsession is still there but different. Right now, it is a game to eat healthy-ish without starving but not to go over my calories too much. In fact, I think I don't want to go over again. I have not in the last 3 or 4 days and it is totally do-able. This tool does put my mind at ease when I've eaten something that I've traditionally believed to be "bad". Like something I had for dinner last night. I did not want to log it but decided I need to be accountable. Then the calories still came in UNDER!
Though it is not ideal to eat nutritiously empty foods, I've decided that I will eat those from time to time. My biggest, BIGGEST hurdle is telling myself I can't eat something ever again. Even diary that I'm allergic too. I don't eat it 90% of the time, but I can't NEVER eat it EVER again. So, I'm not going to try.
I compulsive behavior has shifted. I can't get off the computer right now. I luckily use it to learn more about nutrition. I make up recipes that are healthy and I'm tweaking my food diary etc etc. Those are all good for now as this is a learning curve... HOWEVER my HP in whispering in my ear that I need to get off and do other stuff.
It is now 7:10pm. I want to wash the floors in my house and dust. Generally clean up. I was wanting to do that since I got up at 6am this morning. Not done yet.
So, I'm asking my HP to give me the courage to turn off the computer and to start cleaning my house. That's all I want to accomplish today. And then I'll log it as exercise and will eat a small snack IF I'M HUNGRY FOR ONE.
This is almost like a mini-meeting!0 -
Morning, vat I'm loving our 'little meeting' and this is helping me so much. I'm going to use this little forum to log something daily, whether its my struggles, my joys, or just some trivial things that are going on. It would be lovely if more joined in but for today, this is what it is and exactly what its meant to be.
~Today will be tough. I'm home alone and in my old days a day to binge. My son is camping with friends for the week (school holidays this week), my husband is on duty for the next four days (2 days followed by 2 nights) he's a fireman, and its also a public holiday weekend here in the UK so we have a four days where the majority are celebrating the Queens 60 yrs reign on the throne. There is bunting flying and lots of street parties organised for a lot of people. Inside I feel a bit alone.
My sponsor once told me when I have days like this to do a 'day diary', very much like my food diary. So in advance I write down what I schedule to do today with a time recorded when I will do it. Also plan in my rest periods, because I'm an all or nothing girl I can make myself so busy I will crash at the end of the day then want to eat because I'm so tired. So for today I will:
10.15 Take my dog for his walk (45 mins)
11 ish Have a short rest and enjoy time in the garden/sort laundry
11.30 Do my gardening job for a neighbour
1.00 Lunch and rest.
2.00 Drive to supermarket and buy some supplies for fresh fruit salad I'm making for friends get together on Monday.
3.00 Rest and get ready for massage client at 4 pm.
4.00 Massage treatment.
5.00 Rest
5.30 Start preparing evening meal - husband home at 6.
6.00 Eat.
Doesn't matter if these times aren,t achieved as long as I complete my plan the best I can .
Have a good day everyone!
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Thanks for this. Happy diamond (?) jubilee for you. I love the UK. I lived in London for 2 years from May 1989 - May 2000. It was a GREAT time. I loved it.
I do day diaries too from time to time. They work great.
Today I have had an abundance of energy and it was great using it on stuff that I never want to do like dishes, laundry, mopping, toilet scrubbing and the like.
For today, I feel light, happy and wonderful.0 -
Grateful for abstinence yesterday and my day diary which certainly helped. I didn't do too well on the rest periods as another client booked in for 5 pm (immediately after the other appointment) and didn.t finish work until 6.15. But husband and I cooked our evening meal together which was nice.
Today I am taking my mum and step dad out to a stately home that has a fantastic cafe in the grounds. I don't have a brilliant relationship with my step dad, I find his mood swings hard to deal with and to be honest just tolerate him for the sake of my mum. They have kindly offered to treat me to lunch so I have handed over my day to my HP and asked for guidance for when he starts to irritate me. I keep telling myself, his reactions do not need to change my happy mood. I am responsible for my own feelings, no one else.
Hope you're enjoying the saftisfaction of a clean home vat, at least for a little while until its dirty again :happy: it'll be midweek before I get mine done I think!!!
Grateful for you continuing to post, and find myself looking forward to reading your daily logs.0
